The 1st of Many

We survived Evan's first birthday party. I say "survived" because it implies that the planning and implementing of said party was chaotic. And it was. It was snowing. Dawson desperately wanted to blow up a balloon and continued to make me hold the slobbery end of it when he ran out of breath. Jason kept hanging up the birthday banners that endlessly fell down. AND Evan didn't want to keep his super cute hat on. Other than that, the party was one to be remembered, which is why I did my hair.

Here are Jason and Evan waiting patiently for people to come to the party.

Here are Jason and Evan a little less patient as they wait for people to come to the party.

 

Then I wanted my turn to wait patiently with Evan. He's still not so patient so I had Dawson jump in, to even things out.

I decided to move locations to incorporate a little excitement into the big day. But I don't like the angle because my nose looks big. I think Evan thought my nose looked big too.

 

 Dawson thought it was a simple matter to wait patiently with Evan. So I didn't bother telling him that Evan was trying to break out of Dawson jail.

 

The guests finally arrived. This meant Grammy G and Grandpa finally pulled in the driveway. And then I had this great idea that we should attempt the hat again and turn it around. I mean, why start the party?

 

 He even thought it was fun to pull the hat off. Probably because he was the center of attention and that's a gene he inherited honestly. From his Aunt Karen.

We started the party off by opening presents because we didn't want him to get cake frosting all over the carpet. Or the wrapped presents. Why add flavor to the paper he was going to attempt to eat? That just encourages bad habits.  We only got one picture of him opening presents though, I just realized. Jason said he took video instead.

 

Time for cake! I was annoyed because a balloon had fallen off of the back of his high chair which wreaked havoc on my OCD of centeredness (I do not suffer from this plight nearly as much as Jason does). But I did make Jason add the balloon back in order to commence the cake eating.

 

 Evan doesn't seem too impressed with his glowing, scrumptious, edible cake. Which is probably good, because he didn't get to eat that one.

Here's a better picture of said cake.

 

This is the Smash cake (as it's apparently called) that was all Evan's. My sister Bobbie has dibs on his leftovers, because she has been jabbering on about the fact that she wants one for nearly a week. Bobbie, once you see the end result, you might change your mind. You can see where Jason "accidentally" bumped his finger into the blue ring of icing on the right hand side. I need to know something. What is the difference between icing and frosting?

 

Dig in.

 

I don't know about you, but that is not what I call digging. That is what we called dainty. But he figured it out.

 

 I don't think he was thrilled that we were invading his cake privacy.

 

 There we go. Double-Fisting it.

 Time for a family picture with the birthday boy. You know, to stall the icing ingestion.

 

 Back to the ingestion.

 Is it just me, or does it seem that Evan has an exceptionally large mouth for such a tiny body?

Here you go Bobbie. This is what was left. I think Anita is second in line. If you look carefully at the right of the picture, you'll see the other half of the leftovers in Evan's hand.

 

Time to clean up. He didn't even throw a fit that we took the cake away. He didn't learn that from me.

Happy 1st Birthday Sweet Boy! We love you!

P.S. Evan, do you remember being born? Because I remember you being born.

The Letter X (and other absurdities)

I think the letter X needs a support group. I'll get to that in just a minute. I have a word to say first, to pharmaceutical companies out there. If you are a pharmaceutical company and you think you continually need to create products that begin with the letter X.. please STOP!

Perhaps you haven't realized that the letter X uses the same pronunciation as the letter Z when it is used to begin a word. (Except in the case of the word X-ray, but that example is only ever used in books to teach babies the alphabet)Therefore, make things simple and use the letter Z from now on to name your products. It makes more sense. I'm actually still troubled over the word Xylophone. (All pharmaceutical representatives can now tune me out and/or quit reading this blog). Back to the letter X support group. All of this being said, don't you feel that poor letter x is getting the disadvantage? It never benefits a word by beginning it. Only by being included in it. Actually, just talking about it has cured me. So. Nevermind on that support group.

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I think it's time I let you all know that...

If we leave the bathroom door open, this occurs:

1. Silence

2. Splash, splash, splash

Yes. Evan will play in the toilet bowl. I haven't discovered the amusement by this, but if a few of you will try it and report back to me, it would be greatly appreciated.

That is my final word on absurd matters for today.

But I would like you all to see this awesome picture that Jason took of a snowflake on our kitchen window:

Congenital Ptosis: Surgery Discussions And Options

We had the consultation with Evan’s eye surgeon on Monday. We were given some interesting news. Based on the stuff we have read and researched, we weren’t expecting the news we received.

Evan is going to have permanent surgery on his eyelid. We have the date scheduled in March. We have to go in at 7:00. Evan is not allowed to eat anything past midnight the night before! So he’ll be a miserable little mister just before surgery. I'll probably eat his breakfast. Just kidding. They told us food can have a negative effect on anesthesia making the child sick. I'm probably going to ask if I can have some anesthesia.You know, just for fun.

Anyway, The surgeon is going to shorten the muscle in his eyelid and tighten the tendon connected to it as much as possible. That’s it! Isn’t that crazy? Once he’s finished, his eyelid should perform like a regular eyelid. The surgeon said Evan qualifies for this because he actually has a crease in his eye, meaning that his eyelid is 80-90% normal. Most children are required to do a temporary suture called a “sling” because their ptosis condition is so severe that it wouldn’t matter if they shortened the muscle, the muscle is so weak the eyelid would droop anyway. So we were actually encouraged to know that Evan actually qualifies for permanent surgery, and felt this news was good news. The surgeon showed us several "before and after" pictures of surgeries he had performed on other children. Most cases were more severe than Evan's case, but in all of them you could tell a definite improvement.

Also- They said Evan will actually heal completely in just a day or two.

Of course you'll be updated once again after his surgery. I mean, won't you all want to know if they let me have anesthesia just for fun?

 I'll leave you with a few pictures of the little munchkin and what he's been up to:

He gets pretty excited when he stands for a few seconds on his own.. as evidenced by this picture. He sits down very gingerly. I imagine it's because he doesn't want to smoosh the poop in his diaper.

He's rather happy drinking from a sippy cup, unlike Dawson who would scream and throw the sippy and then dial 911.

Avengers Have Birthdays

Meet Dawson. The 7 year old.

Meet Dawson's 7 year old Avenger cake.

Okay. The cake is not 7 years old. But I really needed to try and keep my sentences precise and similar. I don't know why. I just wanted to. We didn't know until after the fact that the Avenger A lit up with a tiny light bulb. I think WalMart owes us an explanation.

These are the party favors that Dawson and Grammy G made. They should make party favors for my birthdays. I would have them make Avenger thongs.

Here is the party table. I would like you all to take notice of my perfectly placed plastic forks. I do believe that is an example of Alliteration.

The table of presents which is quite lovely.

We planned this party for days because we figured we'd have to come up with something for the kids to do. I know. We're for hire.

So we came up with some games. Jason was in charge of those.

Here are the behaved children, lined up ready to play.

First game: tape a streamer to your butt and run. Okay so the object of the game is to collect as many streamers as you can. But it sounds more fun to to just say tape it to your butt and run.

Second game: frisbee toss. They had to land their small Avenger frisbee in the bucket. No one made it. What is wrong with kids these days? Too many video games.

Next game: Shoot the Captain America Target. Jason drew the target. If I had drawn it it would have looked like this: o  only sloppier.

Up next: tie a balloon to your ankle and keep the others from popping it. They all liked this game but I don't like the sound of balloons popping. It reminds me of drive-by shootings.

Apparently this guy was last and decided to pick up his balloon and dive so they tackled him.



A random shot of everyone's backside. Gotta love those.

The final and favorite game before cake. Poop Deck. Here they are poop decking: 

Opening presents. I should have known better to let Evan down on the floor for this part because somewhere in the process he ate a piece of balloon and pooped it out the next day. The boys are actually more enamored with him than the presents though.



A present before the mess:



A present and an annoying mess:



I'm quite certain Dawson had a great time at the party because later that night he was so tired that he burst into tears for no reason. Now that's tired. I mean for a boy. Because boys don't have PMS.

Happy Birthday My Little Avenger!

Dear Meijer

February 10, 2013

 

Meijer, Inc.
2929 Walker Ave., NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49544-9424

 

Dear Meijer,

     Hi. I’m Joy Wilkins                        …                              Okay.

I would like to highly recommend that you add a store location in Colorado Springs, CO. I know several people from the Midwest that have relocated here that love your store (including me) and have mentioned to me that your store is one store they miss having nearby. I could give you names, but I’m not sure if the employee working for you that is reading this letter also works for the CIA and would snoop into their livelihood which would create drama for me and my friends and I don’t like drama. So.

When I’m back home in the Midwest and grace your store with my presence, my first stop is the World Food aisle. I love that aisle. First, I grab Matzo Ball soup. Have you ever had Matzo Ball soup? I know you sell it, but you should eat it. It smells up your house when you make it, I just want to warn you. But don’t let the smell fool you. The taste is a party for your mouth.

Speaking of the World aisle, I’m wondering if you will ever sell husbands. My friend Kelsey would like an Italian man and I think she would do best finding one in the World aisle if you sold them. I can guarantee you she will not look for one in the frozen food section, so please take my humble advice and do what I say.  Feel free to ask me questions.

The very last swimsuit that I actually liked wearing, I purchased from your store. It was a tankini! The shorts are brown, and the top is white with brown and turquoise polka dots. Could you sell tankinis that remove cellulite? If you did, you could sell them in the snack aisle. I’m not sure why though. Just because you could if you wanted to, I guess.

Well. I suppose I should end this composition. If you add a store location in Colorado Springs, CO, I can assure you that you will have business.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. Otherwise, if you don’t contact me I’ll assume you will begin construction on the store soon. Please put it near my house.

Sincerely,

A Title For This Post.

Sometimes I yell. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in. Like this morning, when Jason and I were in the driveway ready to drive separately to take my car in to get it fixed because my radiator leaks.How bad do I need a radiator anyway? Really? I think it's simpler to buy me a new car, rather than driving separately to go get my car fixed. But we weren't arguing about that actually.  Jason wouldn't let me back inside the house because he was in a hurry so I yelled that I was going to yell and make a scene for all of our neighbors to hear, which he doesn't like for some reason. And then he let me inside.

The end.

Dawson has this thing with nesting. He did it when he was little too:

He surrounds himself with pillows and then stuffs all manner of toys and clutter into his space which then makes a nightmare for me clean up later. Only I think I appreciated it more when he was little, because now he creates this:

Which of course is engineered to take up the entire living room with it's chaos and muddle thereby rendering me to shudder the entire time it's being constructed. If you don't know me, I'll let you in on a little secret: I HATE CLUTTER. Hey look! There's my knees!

While Dawson was busy wreaking havoc on my OCD, ("When it comes to havoc, nobody wreaks like me!"-that's a quote by Dr. Doofensmirtz from Phineas and Ferb because it's my most favorite cartoon in the world of cartoons) Evan was busy in the waste of space room (which is the other room that we have that we really don't use, so we keep it pretty) doing this: 

 This was not a cluttery thing to do.So I let him continue on with his manner of happiness.

But then Dawson decided he was finished with his disorder in the realm of tidiness in the living room and wanted to move it to the well kept and orderly waste of space room so that it looked like this:

And I took pictures of all of this so that I could show Dawson's wife someday that she needs a maid.

 The other night, Evan grabbed my coffee cup which was empty because I wouldn't leave a coffee cup on the floor with coffee in it, and started doing this:

And it made me laugh. Doesn't it make you laugh?

 

 Dawson got his hair cut.

 This was before he got glasses.

That is Dawson with his hair cut while wearing his new glasses which he still actually likes to wear and continues to ask me if I think he will still get to wear them in 2nd grade. I change my answer depending on my mood.

I took this picture of Evan. I think he looks plastic. Does he look plastic to you? There is no "make someone look plastic" feature on our camera so I'm not sure how I did it. Although, if there was a "make someone look Barbie" feature on our camera, I would use it on myself and then I would update my profile picture on FB more often.

 Dawson and I completed another thousand piece puzzle. He picked this one out because he is rather captivated by ocean life just like his daddy. The only problem I have with doing puzzles is that I have to sit, and then my butt conforms to the size of the chair and my legs go numb. Maybe next time I'll do butt clenches.